Module 2 of 6Lesson 1 of 2~14 min
Diagnose where free text breaks your product
A free-text answer works for a person, but it can silently break the code that reads it. This lesson helps you identify who consumes an AI output in your product, what can go wrong for each of them, and decide whether that output deserves a formal contract or can stay as plain text.
Lesson objective
By the end of this lesson, you will be able to list the consumers of an AI output, identify the failures free text causes for each, and decide whether that output needs a contract.
Topics covered
- LLM output
- free text
- parsing
- product reliability
Where it fits
From free text to a contract
Which outputs of my product must become a contract, and which mechanism should I use to get it?
Lessons in this module
- Diagnose where free text breaks your product (this lesson)
- Choose the mechanism that guarantees the structure
What you will learn in this module
This lesson is part of the course Get reliable, product-ready AI outputs (JSON, schemas, function calling)
- Diagnose where free-text output breaks a feature and decide which outputs require a contract.
- Choose between instructions alone, JSON mode, structured outputs and function calling for a given need, and justify the choice.
Related courses
- AI & ProductAdvancedRegular practice: you already use the tools or work on this topic.
Build an AI assistant for your product
3 hr
- AI & ProductAdvancedRegular practice: you already use the tools or work on this topic.
Design a RAG architecture that fits your product
3 hr 30 min
- AI & ProductAdvancedRegular practice: you already use the tools or work on this topic.
Evaluate an AI feature: test sets, metrics and LLM judges
3 hr